Sam Dillon's New York Times story from last Friday seems to have flown under the EduRadar.? And it shouldn't have.
Dillon reports on a California lawsuit brought by a branch of the ACLU objecting to public schools charging fees for such things as gym uniforms and home economics classes.
As mundane as it sounds, the suit ? and the story ? couldn't be more timely. The current budget crunches and crashes all over the country are forcing hundreds of districts to ask some existential questions; among them, what is an education?? And what is a public education?
Belt-tightening is upon us and though I haven't read it yet, Fordham's new book, Stretching the School Dollar ? edited by Rick Hess and ?Eric Osberg ? would seem to be the perfect guide for districts trying to manage ever-scarce dollars.
As co-author Hess says, the book ?walks readers through the budget landscape, suggests practical ways to tame costs, offers bolder ideas for rethinking cost structures, and provides strategies and hard-learned lessons for negotiating the thorny politics.?
Thorny is an understatement and the California question that Dillon writes about takes the money issue a step further: into the courtroom.?? Are athletic uniforms a part of what state constitutions mean in giving students a free education?? What about AP classes?? Are they part of a constitutionally guaranteed public education?? Latin?? Football?
It can be a sign of democratic dysfunction that these questions have to be decided by the courts ? but it's also good to know that we have courts.? As Dillon points out, we've seen dozens of ?equity? lawsuits since the 1970s, where the basic complaints from one school district (or school) are that another district (or school) is receiving an unfair amount of school funds. (This is, or should be, the first question one asks about segregated schools.)
The equity lawsuits seem tame (at least, straightforward) compared to the second generation of such judicial complaints:? the ?adequacy? suits. ?This is where the courts seem to have leapt into the deep end without a life jacket.? What is an adequate education? is just the first troublesome question. ?How do you get it? is the second.
Obviously, it is a big and rambunctious topic, but the California lawsuit may be just the beginning of a new wave of such lawsuits.For educators wanting to brush up on the question, I recommend Education Next's coverage of the territory here (Lindseth & Hanushek),? School Money Trials, a 2007 volume edited by Paul Peterson and Marty West, Courtroom Alchemy (Springer & Guthrie), and The Legal Cash Machine by Joe Williams, now of DFER.
The last one, especially, which tells the story of New York's Dickensian Campaign for Fiscal Equity suit, illustrates the problems of asking courts to tell us what a good school is and how to get it.
?Indeed,? as Joe Williams wrote in this 2005 story, New York City's ?fiscal disadvantage in 1993 [when the CFE suit was launched] was clear to everyone:
[I]ts schoolchildren received some 12 percent fewer dollars than their counterparts elsewhere in the state; 11.8 percent of the city's teachers were uncertified, compared with 7.3 percent statewide; the city's students had 1 computer for every 19 students, compared with 1 for every 13 students statewide; there was 1 guidance counselor for every 700 city students, compared with 1 per 350 students in the rest of the state; there were 16.5 library books per pupil in the state, but only 10.4 in the city. In the year preceding the suit, New York City, which then had 37 percent of the state's students, received less than 35 percent of the state's education dollars; the city got some $3,000 per student while the average student outside of New York got $3,400.
The state aid formula was a mess.? But CFE and its lead attorney, Michael Rebell, argued that it wasn't just unfair, it had ?gross and glaring inadequacy.? And the case soon?morphed into one about whether New York State was providing its children a ?sound basic education.? ?Uniforms? Books? How many? What kind? ?There was ? and is ? no end to the?forest one can get lost in on this.? And the courts did.
After more than a decade, with the case still being argued, the financial inequity which started it had been reversed. As Williams reported, the city was receiving 37.1 percent of state education dollars in 2004-05 despite enrolling only 36.5 percent of the state's students.
By that time, however, the CFE team and the courts were deep into the weeds of adequacy.? ?The process of determining what a `sound basic' education was,? as Williams wrote, ??much less how much it should cost, seemed equal parts science and voodoo.?
We'll see what happens in California.
? Peter Meyer
